There’s a reason it’s at the top of the screen, and it has nothing to do with screen resolution. Try looking up Fitt’s Law (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fittss_law).

Essentially, the menu items are infinitely tall hit targets… no matter how fast the mouse moves towards them, one can never overshoot them vertically. Menus in Windows and most *nix environments require both horizontal and vertical precision.

Furthermore, why are you bothering with the Dock when Exposé and Spotlight (or Quicksilver, Launchbar, etc.) offer great power user alternatives?

Personally, I still can’t stand how Windows and Linux make no distinction between applications and windows.